"I'm dying" were the last words spoken by "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin to his longtime cameraman and friend Justin Lyons, who filmed the 2006 stingray attack that killed his friend.
Seven years later, Lyons is opening up for the first time and revealing Irwin's last few moments and how the Crocodile Hunter was stung hundreds of times until a stingray barb went through his heart, NBC News reported.
During an interview on the Australian talk show, "Studio 10," Lyons told the host that on Sept. 4, 2006, he and Irwin were working on a show called "Ocean's Deadliest" when the large stingray came at them near the Great Barrier Reef. They were originally hoping to film tiger sharks that day.
"We found a massive stingray, this one was extraordinarily large, massive, almost eight feet [long], so it was very impressive," Lyons explained. "We were only in chest-deep water, and we stood up and talked about what we were going to do, we always made a bit of a plan beforehand if we were going to film underwater.'
The crew had reportedly filmed stingrays numerous times before and none showed signs of aggression. Lyons said the animal is often "very clam" and would likely swim away if they don't want to be bothered with. Lyons said they agreed to get a final shot of the stingray swimming away in the foreground.
"All of the sudden it propped up on its front and started stabbing wildly, hundreds of strikes of strikes within a few seconds," Lyons said. "It probably thought Steve's shadow was a tiger shark, which feeds on them regularly. I didn't even know it had caused any damage until I panned the camera back and Steve was standing in a huge pool of blood."
Lyons said Irwin was in severe pain as the crew dragged him out of the water and into the boat. Choking back tears he recalled his best friend's last words.
"I was saying to him things like, 'Think of your kids, Steve,'" he revealed. "He just sort of calmly looked up at me and said, 'I'm dying.'"
"It was seconds but it felt like forever. Even if we had been able to get him to an emergency ward at that moment, we probably wouldn't have been able to save him because the damage to his heart was so massive."
Lyons called Irwin his "best mate" and "right-hand man." The footage of Irwin's death has been a source of controversy since 2006, but Lyons said he never released it, sold it and does not know where it is to this day. He added that he doesn't believe it should be released.
"I don't know what's happened to it and I hope it would never see the light of day," he said.